It
was time for us to move along, as we have to catch the train to
Florence. Just as we reached the bus stop, there were a
group of women there, some of them with a baby in their hand.
All of them were having some cardboard or carton in their hands
and they surrounded us. Initially, we thought them to be beggars
but before we could realise what is happening, each one of pulled
our bags, leather jackets etc. At one point of time, I heard Ganesan
shouting, "I'll call the Police!". Apparently,
one of the lady goons managed to open his hip pouch and luckily
he realised that before the situation went out of his hand. Since
most of us were fully covered with the leather jackets, it was
mission de failure for them and they went behind another group
of tourists. After they had gone, the people at the bus stop asked
us to be very careful and asked us to check our belongings especially,
the wallet and other valuables.
This incident gave me a very sick opinion about Italy. Though it
is not uncommon to spot pickpockets and thieves in India, things
wouldn't be as apparent like this and I didn't expect the people
here to mind their own business as if nothing has happened.
Perhaps, incidents like these are very common for the locals. What
kind of society that is! We were told that their idea is to
forcibly thrust the babies in our hand and before we get relieved
of the shock, they would relieve us of the valuables from us.
Several days after the tour, it sends me jitters down the spine
whenever I see any lady walking with a kid, although I have never
seen or heard this happen in England too.
We
proceeded to Florence by train. The journey took a little more
than 90 minutes. The train passed through the semi-urban towns of
Italy and it wasn't any different from India. Series of houses,
clothes drying out in the terrace or from the balconies, a
tampered car, Telephone/Electrical wiring running haphazardly over
the streets, lots of two wheeler riders etc. made it resemble
closely to India. Though we badly wanted to have a small nap,
incidents earlier in the afternoon kept our eyes wide open.
We
arrived at Florence (Firenze in Italia) at around 1600
hours and we tried to locate the place of the hostel, which we
have already booked. Thanks to the policeman, who directed us
exactly in the opposite direction of where we were supposed to go,
we roamed the streets of Florence for about an hour and a couple
of minutes before locating the hostel. 95% of the Italians do not
understand English. They had very funny pronunciation for some
common words. For example, they pronounce the vowel 'u' in 'Bus'
in a way one would pronounce 'u' in 'put'.
Wherever we go, we are sure to find an Indian restaurant at that
place. Florence had one too by name 'Ashoka Restaurant'. A happy
dinner there cost us 1,85,000 Italian Liras. The denomination
sounded very funny but a quick conversion would tell you that it
is none too costly. After the usual exchange of views at the dorm
to preserve the dormitory culture, we retired to bed with the
satisfaction of seeing one of the 7 wonders of the world.
25th
December 2000
It
was Christmas day and we had already gathered information that
there would be some walking tour at a particular landmark. It so
happens that when ever, we go on tour to some place, rain gods
would follow us. Perhaps, we should try that logic in Chennai. It
was drizzling when we started. Florence is a little, old, ugly
town but it is considered to be one of the important tourist
centres in Italy after Rome and Venice. The streets were very
narrow and it was hard to believe that they manage to run buses in
such narrow streets. They resembled very old towns in India but
for the fact Florence was even dirtier.
We
proceeded towards a point called 'Ponte Vecchio' only to
know that there is no walking tour or whatsoever. By the time we
reached that place, it started raining heavily which saw the
umbrella vendors mushroom all over the place. 'Ponte Vecchio' is
the oldest of the bridges across the river Arno, which
bisects Florence. Once upon a time, the bridge was very wide but
now shops have come up on the bridge that it is too narrow.
Convention has it that only goldsmith's workshops are allowed on
the bridge and it is famous for the same. As it happened to be the
Christmas day, all the shops were closed.
Since there were no tours, we decided that we tour the place
ourselves with the help of the handy map, we had in our
possession. Yards away from 'Ponte Vecchio' stands 'Palazzo
Uffizi'. Today it houses the 'Galleria Uffizi' (Uffizi
for short!), the world famous art collection. Gradually it
became the most important art collection in Italy and one of the
greatest in the world, with some 4000 pictures. Seems that the
gallery has also in its store many valuable sculptures, jewellery,
weapons and many archaeological finds.
Adjoining the 'Uffizi' is an open hall designed for addressing
people. The hall had many sculptures, which seldom impressed us
but probably they should have some art value in that since lot of
people were looking at it awe-struck. Ramaprasad tried to cover
those sculptures in his Camcorder but a cop prevented him from
doing so. We didn't fail to notice one another guy with a much
bigger video camera happily filming the same right under the cop's
nose.
In
the same square (Piazza della Signoria is the name of the square
where this open hall & other buildings are located.) is Palazzo
Vecchio (meaning, the Old Palace), a castle like building that
has a 310 feet high tower. It was raining cats and dogs while we
were standing in the square and filming 'Palazzo Vecchio'. We
initially thought it to be a church but later on we learnt that it
is now a museum. Surprisingly, we found it open and entered it.
The courtyard inside the building was fantastic and the modern day
inscriptions told that there were much more inside. Anyhow, it was
closed on account of the holiday and we had to return after taking
a couple of snaps.
From the Piazza della Signoria, the supposedly busy street (called
'the street of hosiers') runs to the Piazza del Duomo,
the prime attraction of Florence. Right at Piazza del Duomo stood
the Baptistery, which is an octagonal building with an
exceptionally large dome. The Baptistery was simply too huge and
the exterior of the same was encased in white and green marble. It
is said that this Baptistery became the prototype for numerous
Romanesque religious buildings. By the time we visited the place,
the Baptistery too was closed. If it had been open, it would have
been possible to climb to the top of the dome. Moreover, it became
increasingly difficult even to move around because of the heavy
rain.
Florence is full of high rise, old buildings, which on the very
sight tell a lot about their age. Most of them were either museums
or cathedrals. Since we travelled exactly on the wrong day of the
year and also due to the heavy rain, most of us started losing
interest in Florence. But, it is a fact that people who told about
Florence before we made the travel have hyped a lot. After lots of
walking, we moved in to McDonalds for lunch. Suddenly, some of us
struck up with an idea of visiting Venice during this tour. We
spent a lot of time at Florence Railway Station discussing the
pros and cons of such a venture only to abandon the plan. Since
the rains were still too heavy and it was already getting dark, we
returned to our barracks.
Meet you
all in Rome next week....
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